Martha and Me: Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Squares

Everything and anything pumpkin flavored tends to come to mind as a favorite fall treat. I personally happen to be a huge pumpkin fan and try to eat anything pumpkin flavored I can. So, when I saw this recipe, I knew that I had to make it.

(Jessica Wilt | gcmag.org)

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour, (spooned and leveled)

1 tablespoon pumpkin-pie spice

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cups sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup canned pumpkin puree

1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom and sides of a 9-by-13-inch baking pan with foil, leaving an overhang on all sides. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, pie spice, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until smooth; beat in egg and vanilla until combined. Beat in pumpkin puree (mixture may appear curdled.) Reduce speed to low, and mix in dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips.

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan. Bake until edges begin to pull away from sides of pan and a toothpick inserted in center comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached; 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely in pan.

Lift cake from pan (using foil as an aid). Peel off foil, and use a serrated knife to cut into 24 squares.

Preparing these squares was a breeze. They were quite possibly the quickest thing I have ever made. All the ingredients are simple and come together perfectly.

When it came to lining the pan with foil, I was worried. I have seen it done many times on “The Food Network” or on Martha’s show but I was worried that if I didn’t do it correctly the bars would bake with the creases of the foil and look messy. Thankfully, this didn’t happen. The batter was very easy to scrape into the lined pan and spread out amazingly. The bars baked great and rose to perfection.

When I first read this recipe, I was expecting the bars to be like a thick chocolate chip cookie bar with a pumpkin flavor, but they are actually more like a cake texture.

One downfall of this recipe is the lack of pumpkin flavor. I was certain that with the pumpkin pie spice and the pumpkin puree they would have a very strong flavor, but unfortunately this was not true. There was a little spice but the chocolate chips overwhelmed the flavor of the pumpkin.

I am not sure if next time I would use less chocolate chips or more pumpkin pie spice but I would want to find a way to make the bars have more of a pumpkin flavor.

Five people surveyed the overall taste, texture, appearance and quality of the bars: